I've had a really crappy couple of weeks. Nothing to do with Covid, well sort of. Work has been frustrating as hell and getting busier and busier. I was inches away from handing my notice in last week, but you can't really do that in the middle of a pandemic. So I kind of felt trapped. I wanted a week off at the end of June (I'd already booked it off to go to Glastonbury) but I'm not allowed time off until July. From July 1st she can bring back some furloughed staff part time. It's about time the lazy buggers did some work. So that frustrated me to. Also on June 10th any staff that haven't been furloughed yet can NEVER be furloughed. So that pissed me off too, I'm NEVER going to get the chance to be furloughed. The boss did furlough Amanda though and brought back Julie, so hopefully that's going to help a bit as Julie is a full time staff member and Amanda was only 3 days a week. I had a good old moan to Julie when she came back. I have a feeling she may have told the boss as the boss came into the office for a few hours to assist me on Monday. She answered the phones and it made a huge difference. I only finished 35 minutes late. Hurrah!
I was feeling really down last week, which wasn't helped by an incident with a fledgling goldfinch. It got its leg trapped between two poles in my bird feeding station and by the time I saw it it had already been flapping upside down and struggling for some time as there was blood on the poles. I managed to free it but its leg looked mangled. I felt awful.
Two days later I found another fledgling goldfinch face down in my water bucket (that I use to collect rainwater). God knows how long it must've struggled to get out. I feel so guilty. The mangled leg goldfinch, let's call her Lottie (no idea of the sex!) has been back in the garden feeding. She seems quite feisty but she can only 'ground-feed' so I'm constantly trying to make sure that there is seed on the ground for her but the bloody wood pigeons keep scoffing it before she gets the chance. I feel totally responsible for her now. Her leg looks withered, but at least she can still take off quickly. She'll need that to avoid all the bloody cats in the area.
On top of this there have been all of the Black Lives Matter protests and counter protests. I totally understand the need to protest, but I would not risk going out in those crowds. I don't even like going to Lidl. There was one nice moment that came from the protests when I photo emerged of a black man (Patrick Hutchinson) carrying an injured white man (Millwall fan Bryn Male) out of the crowd. It was a stunning photograph and I had a go at emulating it with Affinity Designer. It got a few likes on Twitter with a few people saying that I could sell it. So that's nice.
This is the original photo.
And this is my illustration
Work has been a lot less stressful today. However it's been so muggy and we've had weather warnings for thunderstorms all day, but nothing has materialised yet. I'm desperate for it to rain to clear the air.
The news informs me that a further 184 people died of Covid 19 today bringing the official total to 42,153. Lots of countries now are having zero deaths per day on a daily basis. We have the highest number of deaths in any European country. The lockdown in Wales still hasn't changed. Still can't go more than five miles to meet a friend and you must only meet outside, but my neighbours have got various people visiting every day. They just don't seem to care.
I was very jealous of my friends in Australia who actually had a night in the pub on Saturday. In Austria you can go to the barber and in NZ they had eradicated the virus but just had two new cases. And guess what, they were two people who had recently arrived there from Britain. Unbelievable.
Non-essential shops opened in England on Monday and the news showed MASSIVE queues outside Primark across the country. I will never understand people.
The football starts back tonight and horse racing started a few days ago. All behind closed doors. The things I care about such as live music and festivals are probably not going to restart until 2021 by the looks of it. God knows how many venues will have closed down for good by then. It's so sad.
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